Brand new Art History adjunct writing about school, life and art- but not necessarily in that order.

Saturday, April 29, 2006

RIDE on the PEACE TRAIN!!

So, Teacher Lady has inspired, INSPIRED me to write a post on the joys of rowhouse living. I lived in a row from the time I was two until just two years ago. And it was an experience.

You have to have consideration for you neighbors in a rowhouse. We couldn't clean, or make any noise at all, really, after 9 pm. That's because of our neighbors to the left. They were no fun at all. This was compounded by the fact that my mom made me be friends with their daughter. She killed me, socially, in grade school.

They were early go-to-bedders. Very early. Like I said, 9 pm. Now, this was not all that hard, but sometimes projects took a lot longer than expected. Quite a few IKEA fiascos ended with a call from the neighbors to be quiet. DUDE. And the worst part was, I knew their son was not sleeping in the bedroom on the other side of my wall. Because every night at about 11:30 I heard him sneeze. THROUGH THE WALL, people.

On the right was a sweet older lady who lived alone. Not too many weird sounds from her side. Unless you count the Lawrence Welk show at a bazillion decibles on Saturdays. And as she got older, you could hear her chairlift go upstairs at about 8pm. She was so cute, but those chairlift bitches were loud back then!!

Then she died. I was sad. It took a year to sell her house, but then finally, VIOLA moved in. Oh. My. God. The stories! Viola is about forty, I'd say. Her boyfriend is my age. Literally. And I have nothing against large age differences, cause age doesn't have a ton to do with who you are. But she was the immature one.

Recycling day was always fun. CASES of coors light and milwaukee's best. Box upon box o'wine. hot! Once I saw old E forties and Lighting forties in the recycling. AND! She'd put out said recycling at 11, after her shift at work was over. It sounded like she threw each bottle into the street from her stoop.

One night, my dad was sick with a horrible cold. She had her boytoy over, and they were rocking out. At 11 at night. TO CAT STEVENS! Like, I knew the voice was familiar. Then we were riding on the peace train. And I was all, huh? Who rocks out to Cat Stevens? Needless to say, my dad had to go over and ask them to turn it down a bit. But seriously, who rocks out to CAT frickin STEVENS??

1 comment:

Who knew I was so inspiring? Ha, ha. OMG - I just want you to know that when she's not playing Eminem, we can TOTALLY hear the fashion felon sneeze. I really do like "Peace Train" (quick grammar check - song titles: quote or italicized? Or neither?) a lot. But unless I happened to be making a macrame plant holder, I don't really see myself "rockin' out" to it.